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DA Form 8028 is a DA series document issued for use across the Department of the Army. Official title: U.S. ARMY RESERVE BAR TO CONTINUED SERVICES CERTIFICATE. Purpose: u.s. army reserve bar to continued services certificate. The current edition carries the date 03/01/2018 and is listed with a publication status of ACTIVE. The form runs to 1 page(s) and contains approximately 200 entry fields.
Responsibility for content and revision lies with G-1. The prescribing directive is AR 140-111, which sets both the trigger for use and the disposition of the completed document. Entry is made by the named party or by the records clerk holding the file, with review and signature applied in the prescribed order.
Distributed formats: PDF. The layout is common to all of them; what varies is the method of entry. The pdf is the reference version. In the fillable pdf the entry areas are live objects that accept typing; in the printable version the same areas are inert and are filled by hand after printing.
A pdf opens in any current browser or in a dedicated reader. Fillable behaviour is more reliable in a full reader than in a browser viewer, where some field types render but do not save.
All formats are free to download and no registration is involved. The files are the published documents, distributed unmodified.
What the form asks for
- AGRDays
- AGRMonths
- AGRYears
- APPL_N
- APPL_Y
- AUTH_1
- AUTH_3
- AUTH_FRM
- AUTH_NAME
- AUTH_TO
- BAR_INI_DATE
- CDR_NAME
- ContentArea1
- DATE1
- DATE2
- DATE3
- DATE4
- DATE5
- DATE6
- DAT_APPR
- DAYS
- DONOT
- ENCL
- ETS
Completion follows the printed sequence of blocks from the top of the page downward. The heading area takes the identifying particulars — name, identification number, organisation, date of preparation. Retrieval of the record from a file depends on these entries, and they are therefore filled first.
Fillable fields accept typing directly. Tab advances from one field to the next in the order the form was built, which is normally the reading order of the page. Check boxes and option buttons are clicked; where a set of options is exclusive, selecting one clears the rest. Fields sized for a single line will not wrap, and text exceeding the width is truncated in print even where it remains visible on screen. Long entries belong in the remarks area or on a continuation, not compressed into a narrow field.
The signature block is the final entry, made by hand or by an authorised electronic method, and without it the document remains a draft. Countersignatures — review, approval, witness — are added in the sequence printed, dated at the moment of signing and not at preparation. Empty mandatory fields lead the list of defects; an inapplicable field is annotated as such, not passed over. Behind it come digit transposition in identification numbers, day-month inversion in dates, and residual entries surviving from a reused copy in place of a blank form.
A Privacy Act statement appears on the form where personal information is collected. It sets out the authority for collection, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether disclosure is mandatory or voluntary. The statement is read before entry, not after. Completed copies carry personal data and are handled and stored under the safeguards applicable to that data.
The completed form is routed as the governing authority prescribes: to the office named in the directive, through the unit administrative channel, or into the individual's file, depending on the case. A copy is retained by the preparer. Filing and retention follow the records schedule applicable to the series rather than local practice.
Associated documents are located through the series and number scheme. Forms in the DA series with the same proponent or the same prescribing directive tend to be used as a set, and any form named on the face of another normally accompanies it. Continuations, cover sheets, and transmittals fall into this category and are gathered before the package is sent.
Revision by the proponent supersedes an edition. Version is read from the edition date printed on the form itself, and a stored copy is compared against the current edition before it is used again. Documents already executed under an earlier edition are not redone because of the change.
The files here are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, provided for download. This site is not part of the Department of the Army and issues no forms of its own. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and no representation is made as to acceptance of a document by any office. Where an entry, a requirement, or a question of eligibility is in doubt, the proponent or the servicing administrative office answers it.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 8028?
- U.S. ARMY RESERVE BAR TO CONTINUED SERVICES CERTIFICATE
- Which edition is current?
- 03/01/2018
- Who is responsible for this form?
- G-1
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, PDF